"The Angels' Share" (2012), a British comedy drama directed by Ken Loach, is to be screened at the 2012 Cinecube Premiere Festival. The film won the Jury Prize at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. / Courtesy of Cinecube

By Rachel Lee

It's time for a little break from Korean blockbusters.

Cinecube, an art cinema in central Seoul, is once again set to grab the attention of Korean audiences with its selection of the world's finest art films at the 2012 Cinecube Premiere Festival, starting Thursday.

"A total of 16 well-made international art films will be premiered at the festival," Ko Ah-ra, an organizer of the event, said Monday in a telephone interview. "All of them will be released in Korea either by the end of this year or next year."

The annual event, which began in 2009, comprises of three sections — "Cannes in Seoul," "Masters of the Future," and "The Mysterious Art of Acting."

"Cannes in Seoul" presents a selection of award winners from the Cannes Film Festival, one of the world's leading film festivals along with Venice and Berlin. This year's line-up features five movies. It includes French drama "Amour" (2012), directed by Michael Haneke that grabbed the top prize at the festival, "The Angels' Share" (2012) a British comedy drama directed by Ken Loach, and Danish film "The Hunt," directed by Thomas Vinterberg.

The line-up for "Masters of the Future" and "The Mysterious Art of Acting" presents five and six movies respectively. Viewers will get to see "The Women in the Fifth" (2011), a film based on a novel by Douglas Kennedy, and "Shadow Dancer" (2012), a British-Irish drama set in Belfast about a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army becoming an informant for the United Kingdom's Security Service, MI5.

Another notable offering is "A Royal Affair" (2012), a historical film about a married young queen who secretly falls in love with her physician; "Anna Karenina" (2012), the latest film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's 1877 novel with British stars Keira Knightly and Jude Law.

The festival will run through Dec. 5 at Cinecube Theater in Seoul. Each film will be screened twice during the period.